Max Weber in Mayberry

Max Weber, the towering figure of modern sociological theory, was born 144 years ago today. It turns out that 104 years ago, while in the U.S. to attend a scholarly conference in connection with the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, Weber and his wife visited their cousins in Mt Airy, North Carolina.

Zog nit keyn mol

65 years ago, Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up in resistance against their impending deportation to the Nazi death camps.

Warsaw Ghetto Seder

Captured Ghetto Resisters

N.B. The title of this post comes from a famous song by Yiddish poet Hirsh Glick, who was part of the Jewish underground in the Vilna ghetto. The song was inspired [...]

Happy Bicycle Day!

It was 65 years ago today, that Dr. Hoffman taught the world to play.

Incidentally, Dr. Hoffman is still alive, and turned 102 earlier this year.

This day in history

April 9, 1865: Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia
April 9, 1998: Eric M. Fink surrenders to Maria L. Spitz at U.S. Courthouse, Philadelphia, PA

Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Mountaintop” speech, delivered in Memphis on the eve of his assassination.

King was in Memphis to support the city’s sanitation workers, who were on strike over appalling working conditions. It was the Memphis strikers who introduced the now famous slogan, “I Am a Man“, which so [...]

Martin Luther King, Jr.

In celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, here are some reflections on the radical-democratic King, who too often gets overlooked in mainstream portrayals:

Martin Luther King, Jr., Democratic Socialist (Paul Street, ZNet)
No Small Dreams: The Radical Evolution of MLK’s Last Years (Michael Eric Dyson, LiP)
Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. (Blair Golson, Truth Dig)
Remembering [...]

The Prophet Unarmed

Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party 80 years ago today, marking the point at which any reasonable doubt should have evaporated as to the direction the Bolshevik state was headed. I have mixed feelings about the Old Man, but there is much about him that I do admire, including this astute observation [...]

35 years ago

One of my students reminded me of another November 7 anniversary.

(N.B. Doh! Erroneous math in headline corrected.)

Ten days that shook the world

Of course it ended badly. But its beginning remains something to celebrate.

No pasarán de nuestra memoria

Now I have a compelling reason to make a trip to New York. The International Center of Photography has four concurrent exhibits about the Spanish Civil War. These include the work of photojournalists (and lovers) Gerda Taro and Robert Capa who covered the war (during which Taro was killed), photographs by Francesc Torres dcoumenting a [...]